Guild Wars 2

If I want to do mega zerg pve content, I do it with guilds built for that. If I want to do tight knit wvw 5 man roaming, I do it with guilds built for that. If I want to do organized dungeon speed runs I do it with guilds built for that.

I’m sure you can follow where I am going, but if you want to do 10/20/XX man raids (whatever they will end up being) it would stand to reason you should hook up with a guild that does that sort of content.

VodCom.6924:

EgonVenkman.1907:

That is a big part of the problem with zerker in general. Unless they use other universally annoying tactics for the mobs, Beserker stats just dominate overall. Anet goes for the 1-2 hit K.O. which invalidates the need for toughness or healing mechanics that could be used to support that gameplay. They pretty much wrote themselves into a corner when they decided beserker stats was a good idea.

I think many people miss the point on the berserker dominance “issue”.

Optimized groups DO have the trinity of damage/control/support. Control come in the form of projectile negation and bump, support comes in the form of aegis, protection and might. Players can perform these roles while wearing zerker/assassin.

Berserker is not bad because it deals the most damage. It is bad because under the current system it allows you to clear most bosses quickly enough to skip their entire fight mechanic.

The most overused example is how optimised groups can clear the spider queen in AC. Most of us PuG AC. In this context, the group usually range the spider and try to dodge its poison areas (you do not stand idle pressing 1 while doing this btw). While repetitive and boring, it does require you to know when to dodge and when to clean immobilize.
An optimised group usually kills the spider under 4 seconds, which prevent the boss to use any of its attacks (including poison area) basically neutering the encounter and making it uninteresting, since you are just repeating your rotation and the might stacking. And the only thing you do during almost every encounter in the kitten ed dungeon is repeat the sequence pre-stack -> rotation. This makes things boring very quickly.

Berzerker gear was intended to be the gear of the top 5% elite players because only these people are skilled enough to be viable with such fragility. Because of loopholes in encounter design, 90% of the people can carry berserker armour and be viable in dungeon. This is the true problem behind the berserker dominance. Berserker stat is not a problem in itself and removing it won’t change anything.

You said it yourself that organised groups are the ones that explode the spider while most AC pugs range it.

Organised groups are the minority in gw2.

Therefore it seems to me that it is actually the top 5% who are the ones stacking queen and it’s the 90% of pugs who are ranging.

maha.7902:

Organised groups are the minority in gw2.

Therefore it seems to me that it is actually the top 5% who are the ones stacking queen and it’s the 90% of pugs who are ranging.

True. I’m getting sleepy so my post might not be perfectly proofread.

My point was : I tried to “range” the taskmaster in CoF P1 as a zerker thief. Good lord it hurts. I changed to knight and everything got smoother… and a bit slower (note : I am not a good player by any stretch of imagination).

Either I do things according to the meta way and it’s boring. Or I do things the pug way and I better switch back to knight because I’m not a good player.

So where is the problem? Organised groups are melting bosses while less organised (as in, can’t demolish slave driver in ~6 seconds) groups have players that may feel the need to switch in defensive gear.

After reading through the thread again, I’ve compiled a list of common things players want raids to be:

• 10-25 player instanced content (possibly multiple raids each with different party sizes).
• Less “do this at this time” mechanics.
• Clear objectives and mechanics that don’t require vocal communication or precise coordination.
• More importance given to defense, CC, and support mechanics and less about sheer damage.
• Multiple objectives and roles for players in the group.
• Condition stacking needs to be fixed.
• Appropriate monetary and exclusive rewards for the difficulty and scale.
• No vertical stat progression.

Can we all agree on this or is there something that should be added to or removed from this list?

Bri.8354:

• mechanics that don’t require vocal communication or precise coordination.

can just as well join the cursed shore champ zerg and run in circles + spam 1 mindlessly.

raids are pretty much all about:

• mechanics that require vocal communication or precise coordination.

NoTrigger.8396:

Bri.8354:

• mechanics that don’t require vocal communication or precise coordination.

can just as well join the cursed shore champ zerg and run in circles + spam 1 mindlessly.

raids are pretty much all about:

• mechanics that require vocal communication or precise coordination.

I completely agree.

NoTrigger.8396:

Bri.8354:

• mechanics that don’t require vocal communication or precise coordination.

can just as well join the cursed shore champ zerg and run in circles + spam 1 mindlessly.

raids are pretty much all about:

• mechanics that require vocal communication or precise coordination.

I was very specific in my wording with that one. Content should not require vocal communication to complete effectively and should not require precise coordination (of the group) to complete mechanics.

Rather the mechanics of the fights and roles the players take need to be clear enough that players should be able to view their surroundings and make the right decisions, not have to listen someone shout in their ear the entire fight to know what to do and what is going on.

Precise coordination in large scale content is never a satisfying or skillful mechanic. Getting players to do a specific task in a small window is hard enough in 5 player groups and expecting 15-25 players to do that would not be suited for anything but the most coordinated guilds.

Bri.8354:

Precise coordination in large scale content

this is part of raids.

Bri.8354:

is never a satisfying or skillful mechanic.

its called teamplay.

Bri.8354:

Getting players to do a specific task in a small window is hard enough in 5 player groups and expecting 15-25 players to do that would not be suited for anything

depends if the players are halfway decent and smart.
but this part makes you look like you havent experienced real raids in other games.

Bri.8354:

but the most coordinated guilds.

thats what raid content is for.
it is for coordinated guilds and not for pugs.
if you dont want precise coordination and a organized guild, world bosses/events is probably what you should be looking for.

Bri.8354:

After reading through the thread again, I’ve compiled a list of common things players want raids to be:

• 10-25 player instanced content (possibly multiple raids each with different party sizes).
• Less “do this at this time” mechanics.
• Clear objectives and mechanics that don’t require vocal communication or precise coordination.
• More importance given to defense, CC, and support mechanics and less about sheer damage.
• Multiple objectives and roles for players in the group.
• Condition stacking needs to be fixed.
• Appropriate monetary and exclusive rewards for the difficulty and scale.
• No vertical stat progression.

Can we all agree on this or is there something that should be added to or removed from this list?

Exclusive rewards, outside of titles, aren’t something everyone in the thread agreed on. Vertical aesthetic progression – a better skin than others who don’t raid can acquire rather than a different skin than others who don’t raid can get, is just as objectionable to some as vertical stat progression. And, as I alluded to previously, there really isn’t a need for more stuff that has a wide range of appeal, such as quivers, to be locked behind content that there is a split about.

Bri.8354:

After reading through the thread again, I’ve compiled a list of common things players want raids to be:

• 10-25 player instanced content (possibly multiple raids each with different party sizes).
• Less “do this at this time” mechanics.
• Clear objectives and mechanics that don’t require vocal communication or precise coordination.
• More importance given to defense, CC, and support mechanics and less about sheer damage.
• Multiple objectives and roles for players in the group.
• Condition stacking needs to be fixed.
• Appropriate monetary and exclusive rewards for the difficulty and scale.
• No vertical stat progression.

Can we all agree on this or is there something that should be added to or removed from this list?

You left out Monks.

Bri.8354:

• 10-25 player instanced content (possibly multiple raids each with different party sizes).
• Less “do this at this time” mechanics.
• Clear objectives and mechanics that don’t require vocal communication or precise coordination.
• More importance given to defense, CC, and support mechanics and less about sheer damage.
• Multiple objectives and roles for players in the group.
• Condition stacking needs to be fixed.
• Appropriate monetary and exclusive rewards for the difficulty and scale.

God no.

Please stay true to the GW2 manifesto.

Musha.4025:

Please stay true to the GW2 manifesto.

Stay true to the what now?

NoTrigger.8396:

Bri.8354:

Precise coordination in large scale content

this is part of raids.

Bri.8354:

is never a satisfying or skillful mechanic.

its called teamplay.

Bri.8354:

Getting players to do a specific task in a small window is hard enough in 5 player groups and expecting 15-25 players to do that would not be suited for anything

depends if the players are halfway decent and smart.
but this part makes you look like you havent experienced real raids in other games.

Would you support a mechanic that required every player to pick up and use a bundle on a boss within a 3 second window of each-other? This is type of precise coordination I’m talking about. It’s less about teamwork or smart and skillful play and more about herding, which is one of the core issues many players have with the way Tequalt and the three headed worm were designed.

There are far better ways to design content for teamwork and coordination than that.

Bri.8354:

Would you support a mechanic that required every player to pick up and use a bundle on a boss within a 3 second window of each-other? This is type of precise coordination I’m talking about. It’s less about teamwork or smart and skillful play and more about herding, which is one of the core issues many players have with the way Tequalt and the three headed worm were designed.

There are far better ways to design content for teamwork and coordination than that.

Hey now, Tequatl isn’t so . . . bound to precise timing. In fact, it can easily be made to work if your instance is just willing to listen to instructions. “Turrets, hit the head with #2, then drop #3 on where the zerg is standing. Cleanse each other too.” “Everyone defend the batteries, western kill tendrils, north stomp grub holes, east kill things.”

There’s no precise coordination needed, only communication. Not unlike the marionette event, which required communication rather than coordination.

Triple Trouble, well, I’ve tried it a few times. It seems to really require effort to time the kills closely and to handle the mechanics. It’s a different animal than Tequatl, as much as Tequatl is a different animal than the Shatterer.

And none of them are quite as time-consuming as a run at the Temple of Balthazar, which needs an entire zone to complete three separate event chains and keep them from falling apart until a fourth begins.

I’d say if we had raids, Marionette is a good model to start from. As is Tequatl. Triple Trouble is a good high water mark for precision of mechanics and communication. Temple of Balthazar/Straits of Devastation is a good high watermark for how to get an entire zone to be a raid.

GOSU.9574:

You left out Monks.

I assume you are referencing “multiple objectives and roles for players in the group”.

These roles don’t have to be profession based, but can be simply part of the encounters mechanics. Using Tequalt as an example, some players use the turrets, others defend the turrets, and others physically attack the boss.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Bri.8354:

Would you support a mechanic that required every player to pick up and use a bundle on a boss within a 3 second window of each-other? This is type of precise coordination I’m talking about. It’s less about teamwork or smart and skillful play and more about herding, which is one of the core issues many players have with the way Tequalt and the three headed worm were designed.

There are far better ways to design content for teamwork and coordination than that.

Hey now, Tequatl isn’t so . . . bound to precise timing. In fact, it can easily be made to work if your instance is just willing to listen to instructions. “Turrets, hit the head with #2, then drop #3 on where the zerg is standing. Cleanse each other too.” “Everyone defend the batteries, western kill tendrils, north stomp grub holes, east kill things.”

There’s no precise coordination needed, only communication. Not unlike the marionette event, which required communication rather than coordination.

Triple Trouble, well, I’ve tried it a few times. It seems to really require effort to time the kills closely and to handle the mechanics. It’s a different animal than Tequatl, as much as Tequatl is a different animal than the Shatterer.

And none of them are quite as time-consuming as a run at the Temple of Balthazar, which needs an entire zone to complete three separate event chains and keep them from falling apart until a fourth begins.

I’d say if we had raids, Marionette is a good model to start from. As is Tequatl. Triple Trouble is a good high water mark for precision of mechanics and communication. Temple of Balthazar/Straits of Devastation is a good high watermark for how to get an entire zone to be a raid.

I was linking precise coordination to “herding”, which is what many players don’t enjoy about that sort of content, not saying that Tequalt used precise coordination.

I agree with marionette being a good model for raids. If you had 5 players at each of the paths, or less paths with more players in each one, joining up in the final arena at the end, everything would work fairly well, probably better than the open-world version.

Bri.8354:

I was linking precise coordination to “herding”, which is what many players don’t enjoy about that sort of content, not saying that Tequalt used precise coordination.

Bah, Tequatl doesn’t really need “herding” either – it only requires it due to the massive amount of scaling due to having so many people wanting to be in a successful instance. Probably because the rewards are rather lucrative for a little amount of work (if you’re in the zerg rather than on turrets or boats).

With less people, Tequatl would not require herding quite as strongly. Mostly because with less people, there’s less need to shout instructions – they’ll be aware of what to do by the time it starts off.

I agree with marionette being a good model for raids. If you had 5 players at each of the paths, or less paths with more players in each one, joining up in the final arena at the end, everything would work fairly well, probably better than the open-world version.

I think as designed Marionette could struggle with only five people on each path due to the need to slow down so much watchwork.

I have a feeling the raid CDI is going to be a mess based on this thread and the discussions before it. There won’t be a clear vision or summary as everyone has preconceived notions on what a raid should be and what would work well in this game.

ANet calls Tequalt and the worm their version of raids.
GW1 players think raids are what the elite dungeons were like.
WoW players think raids are what they are like in WoW, including gear progression.
And then there are the dozens of other games out there with different styles of “raids”, one of my favorite being Vindictus.

So what is a “raid” exactly?

• Is it open world or instanced?
• What is its difficulty based on, added mechanics or combat mechanics?
• Should mechanics be based around a commander herding everyone like in WvW or individual thought processes and natural teamwork reactions like in marionette, assault knights, and holographic scarlet?
• What should rewards be like? Should it offer exclusive rewards like those seen in FotM, Tequalt, guild missions, and PvP tracts?
• What level coordination should they require? Should everyone need to sync up perfectly, only allowing organized guilds to complete it effectively, or should the difficulty be based more around individual mastery and knowledge of the mechanics allowing skilled public groups to complete it effectively?

The answer will never be uniform as everyone wants something different from raids. In the end its going to be up to Arenanet to choose what they want to add to the game, not based on the CDI, but based on what they want to put out.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Bri.8354:

I was linking precise coordination to “herding”, which is what many players don’t enjoy about that sort of content, not saying that Tequalt used precise coordination.

Bah, Tequatl doesn’t really need “herding” either – it only requires it due to the massive amount of scaling due to having so many people wanting to be in a successful instance. Probably because the rewards are rather lucrative for a little amount of work (if you’re in the zerg rather than on turrets or boats).

With less people, Tequatl would not require herding quite as strongly. Mostly because with less people, there’s less need to shout instructions – they’ll be aware of what to do by the time it starts off.

Agreed; with fewer players Tequalt wouldn’t have that problem and I’d be perfectly content with its design.

This is one of the things I hate about the open world. They have to account for extra players, even those that aren’t mechanically important, the end result being either a trivialized fight (most temple events and world bosses), or one that players are just there for the damage.

If they do add raids I hope they are instanced, otherwise they will see similar issues.

Here’s an idea.
Remake Underworld.
Success of failure of the run depends on each individual player.

Nick.6972:

Here’s an idea.
Remake Underworld.
Success of failure of the run depends on each individual player.

I’m not sure if I’m okay with that – it means one person screwing around, or just not being capable is going to screw it up for everyone. Even the raids I went on in old EverQuest weren’t so cutthroat.

Maybe, but it adds the thrill and pressure.
If people knew that they can’t die, maybe they’d actually chose PTV or Knight’s armor.
And I’d suggest removing WPs too.
And those wonderful Aatxe, make them auto attack for 5k.

Nick.6972:

Maybe, but it adds the thrill and pressure.
If people knew that they can’t die, maybe they’d actually chose PTV or Knight’s armor.
And I’d suggest removing WPs too.
And those wonderful Aatxe, make them auto attack for 5k.

I’m okay with removing WPs, and the Aatxe bring so dangerous . . . I’m not sure I’m okay with “one guy goes down, we all lose”. Especially with how many ways there were for you to lose UW without necessarily being bad.

Bri.8354:

I have a feeling the raid CDI is going to be a mess based on this thread and the discussions before it. There won’t be a clear vision or summary as everyone has preconceived notions on what a raid should be and what would work well in this game.

ANet calls Tequalt and the worm their version of raids.
GW1 players think raids are what the elite dungeons were like.
WoW players think raids are what they are like in WoW, including gear progression.
And then there are the dozens of other games out there with different styles of “raids”, one of my favorite being Vindictus.

So what is a “raid” exactly?

• Is it open world or instanced?
• What is its difficulty based on, added mechanics or combat mechanics?
• Should mechanics be based around a commander herding everyone like in WvW or individual thought processes and natural teamwork reactions like in marionette, assault knights, and holographic scarlet?
• What should rewards be like? Should it offer exclusive rewards like those seen in FotM, Tequalt, guild missions, and PvP tracts?
• What level coordination should they require? Should everyone need to sync up perfectly, only allowing organized guilds to complete it effectively, or should the difficulty be based more around individual mastery and knowledge of the mechanics allowing skilled public groups to complete it effectively?

The answer will never be uniform as everyone wants something different from raids. In the end its going to be up to Arenanet to choose what they want to add to the game, not based on the CDI, but based on what they want to put out.

My initial thought was that these questions need to be answered as soon after the CDI starts as possible. Then I realized that once the thread got a couple of pages long, people would just jump in and not read the rest of the thread. Maybe Chris should use the Question/Answer posting option to put these points at the top of every page.

It seems to me sometimes that hosting a CDI is like the proverbial “herding of cats.” A raid CDI is going to take that to a new level, because of the points Bri raises. I strongly suspect that nothing like consensus is going to come from this.

IndigoSundown.5419:

My initial thought was that these questions need to be answered as soon after the CDI starts as possible. Then I realized that once the thread got a couple of pages long, people would just jump in and not read the rest of the thread. Maybe Chris should use the Question/Answer posting option to put these points at the top of every page.

It seems to me sometimes that hosting a CDI is like the proverbial “herding of cats.” A raid CDI is going to take that to a new level, because of the points Bri raises. I strongly suspect that nothing like consensus is going to come from this.

Since raids aren’t going to be a multi-part CDI they can’t be asking the questions many of us are trying to answer in this thread. Rather than asking “What should raids be?” they need to make clear what they have in mind for raids and gather feedback about how to improve and build upon what they have in mind.

So for instance, they would have to state something like this in the opening post:

What we view a raids to be is:

• A new guild mission in the open world that anyone can join in on.
• It will feature puzzles and combat encounters, leading up to a boss at the end.
• Rewards will be guaranteed rares or greater, guild commendations, and guild specific rewards like the other guild missions, only greater.
• Players can only gain credit from these once a week.

Players can then suggest alternative and additional systems, ways to improve encounters and mechanics, and things of that nature rather than everyone throwing out a different idea of what a “raid” should be.

Bri.8354:

• What level coordination should they require?

No content in the game should require out of game resources. Voice coordination is achieved through out of games resources. Thus, no content in this game should require coordination on the level that can be reasonably achieved only using voice chats.

VodCom.6924:

I think many people miss the point on the berserker dominance “issue”.

Optimized groups DO have the trinity of damage/control/support. Control come in the form of projectile negation and bump, support comes in the form of aegis, protection and might. Players can perform these roles while wearing zerker/assassin.

Berserker is not bad because it deals the most damage. It is bad because under the current system it allows you to clear most bosses quickly enough to skip their entire fight mechanic.

I’m talking about general PvE, for 99% DPS is always superior over Support and Control, while 1% is where Support and Control have equal chances with DPS.

As long as Support’s abilities can change flow abit and Control would be given enough targets and both not limited to only boss fights, everything would be pretty much fine.

It’s fine to use any build one desires to use. But atleast give Support and Control builds better chances, have chance to change to flow of the battle with these, as long as the mobs don’t die in 1-3 seconds and do nothing to the party with mostly harmless abilities.

Support and Control builds also deal damage, but since they invest most on role specific abilities so they deal less dmg, while they offer longevity and change to flow of battle, which DPS builds mostly lack for “Long duration Combat Scenarios”.

As long as Support and Control are useful and equally capable as DPS builds.

Is it open world or instanced?
Open World raids are fine, if they also contain a limited amount of splitting, to me, the most important aspect of an Open World raid is splitting up the players (blob), and this is where most/all base World Bosses fail miserably. Tequatl, the Triple Wurm and Marrionette require some amount of splitting though, but more is needed. For example, although Tequatl has a number of different roles that all must succeed, different Turret users, Turret defense parties, the rest of the players just form 2 big dps blobs, even MORE roles/split is needed to force players to move around and not blob together. The Ogre/Devourer guild challenge is another example of “spliting the blob” that works well.

Instanced raids are far easier to balance and create mechanics to “split the blob”, but it’s not like it can’t be done in Open World too.

What is its difficulty based on, added mechanics or combat mechanics?

Added mechanics work better because mobs in the game don’t know how to work together and form proper mechanics, they just spam their skills on cooldown, they have 1-shot kill attacks and an insane amount of hit points. That’s hardly interesting or challenging.

How about a CDI on Mob design before we move on Raids?
Mob design is something that really needs an update (a HUGE update)

Should mechanics be based around a commander herding everyone like in WvW or individual thought processes and natural teamwork reactions like in marionette, assault knights, and holographic scarlet?

Both types can be used.

What should rewards be like? Should it offer exclusive rewards like those seen in FotM, Tequalt, guild missions, and PvP tracts?

I’d say Raids should be “Guild Raids” and offer similar rewards to Guild Missions, only even higher than Challenge. Some exclusive skins can also be used here, like reskins of previous skins (similar to Teq rewards).

What level coordination should they require? Should everyone need to sync up perfectly, only allowing organized guilds to complete it effectively, or should the difficulty be based more around individual mastery and knowledge of the mechanics allowing skilled public groups to complete it effectively?

Using out of the game software (voice chat) shouldn’t be a REQUIREMENT for finishing content in the game. I won’t say “everyone” to sync up, but at least the sub-blobs of the raid should be required to work together and sync their attacks (like in the Marrionette fight)

Bri.8354:

After reading through the thread again, I’ve compiled a list of common things players want raids to be:

• 10-25 player instanced content (possibly multiple raids each with different party sizes).
• Less “do this at this time” mechanics.
• Clear objectives and mechanics that don’t require vocal communication or precise coordination.
• More importance given to defense, CC, and support mechanics and less about sheer damage.
• Multiple objectives and roles for players in the group.
• Condition stacking needs to be fixed.
• Appropriate monetary and exclusive rewards for the difficulty and scale.
• No vertical stat progression.

Can we all agree on this or is there something that should be added to or removed from this list?

This is a really good list.

Any raid easy enough for pugs to be able to accomplish with no voice communication of coordination will be too easy for competent guilds and won’t be worth the title ‘raid.’ Ideally we want content that won’t be beaten the first day it’s released.

hybrid.5027:

Any raid easy enough for pugs to be able to accomplish with no voice communication of coordination will be too easy for competent guilds and won’t be worth the title ‘raid.’ Ideally we want content that won’t be beaten the first day it’s released.

Perhaps you should get a time machine and go back to vanilla WoW…. The sad, unfortunate truth is that there are too many people who dedicate a large portion of their life to do that exact thing; beat them day 1. It is a fact of modern mmo development that you locusts will chew through the entire content that took a year to develop in a matter of hours or days, then cry that it was too easy or you want more.

GW2 is the casual person’s mmo. It was promoted and initially designed as such. If done properly, even their Raids will reflect that. Anyone can complete the content, which means that YES, your highly specialized and dedicated team will probably burn it with no problems. Just like the teams who burn through Fractal level 50 as easier than some of us handle level 1. But the whole point of GW2 content that it is inclusive, not exclusive.

What you are really wanting is a way to justify your personal feelings that you are better than the rest of the population. You don’t really want an enjoyable experience that can be had by all, but an experience that can only be completed by the top x% of players. That line of thinking is going the way of the past. Blame us casuals all you want, but blame your own kind as well. Wildstar raids were developed precisely to cater to your mentality, but the community imploded on itself.

Your type had a chance at the hard and challenging content with Wildstar. And you proved that the hardcore community is too toxic, especially when working within your own kind.

EgonVenkman.1907:

Perhaps you should get a time machine and go back to vanilla WoW…. The sad, unfortunate truth is that there are too many people who dedicate a large portion of their life to do that exact thing; beat them day 1. It is a fact of modern mmo development that you locusts will chew through the entire content that took a year to develop in a matter of hours or days, then cry that it was too easy or you want more.

GW2 is the casual person’s mmo. It was promoted and initially designed as such. If done properly, even their Raids will reflect that. Anyone can complete the content, which means that YES, your highly specialized and dedicated team will probably burn it with no problems. Just like the teams who burn through Fractal level 50 as easier than some of us handle level 1. But the whole point of GW2 content that it is inclusive, not exclusive.

What you are really wanting is a way to justify your personal feelings that you are better than the rest of the population. You don’t really want an enjoyable experience that can be had by all, but an experience that can only be completed by the top x% of players. That line of thinking is going the way of the past. Blame us casuals all you want, but blame your own kind as well. Wildstar raids were developed precisely to cater to your mentality, but the community imploded on itself.

Your type had a chance at the hard and challenging content with Wildstar. And you proved that the hardcore community is too toxic, especially when working within your own kind.

If that what the gw2 playbase want why even do raids, that type of raids you already have in-game its called world bosses, or guild missions(challenges).

Look the raids dont need to be Hardcore, they just need to not be press 1 and get loot like world bosses are, besides Anet already did content that not everyone could complete like the tequalt(when was new) and the Evolved Wurm, and im almost 100% sure that not everyone have kill it yet.

lekyii.9856:

If that what the gw2 playbase want why even do raids, that type of raids you already have in-game its called world bosses, or guild missions(challenges).

Yes, good question. I don’t really see a reason, to be truthful.

lekyii.9856:

Look the raids dont need to be Hardcore, they just need to not be press 1 and get loot like world bosses are

Strawman much?

lekyii.9856:

besides Anet already did content that not everyone could complete like the tequalt(when was new) and the Evolved Wurm, and im almost 100% sure that not everyone have kill it yet.

Tequatl is now in relatively good place, though it could use a bit of downscaling so that it can be done by instances that aren’t capped – meaning, any full instance can reasonably expect to finish it, as long as they put in the effort. Three-headed Wurm on the other hand was, and still is an example of bad design. I’d rather not see more events like that in the game.

EgonVenkman.1907:

Your type had a chance at the hard and challenging content with Wildstar. And you proved that the hardcore community is too toxic, especially when working within your own kind.

why do you say stuff like that when you dont have a clue? people arent leaving wildstar because of the difficult content or your mysterious toxic community. they are leaving because of server transfer restrictions, rune rng and stuff like that.
tbh with you the gw2 community is far more toxic because of angry, mad, jelly, envy and egoistic kids than the wildstar hardcore community. and your post is the prime example for that.

EgonVenkman.1907:

Perhaps you should get a time machine and go back to vanilla WoW…. The sad, unfortunate truth is that there are too many people who dedicate a large portion of their life to do that exact thing; beat them day 1. It is a fact of modern mmo development that you locusts will chew through the entire content that took a year to develop in a matter of hours or days, then cry that it was too easy or you want more.

GW2 is the casual person’s mmo. It was promoted and initially designed as such. If done properly, even their Raids will reflect that. Anyone can complete the content, which means that YES, your highly specialized and dedicated team will probably burn it with no problems. Just like the teams who burn through Fractal level 50 as easier than some of us handle level 1. But the whole point of GW2 content that it is inclusive, not exclusive.

What you are really wanting is a way to justify your personal feelings that you are better than the rest of the population. You don’t really want an enjoyable experience that can be had by all, but an experience that can only be completed by the top x% of players. That line of thinking is going the way of the past. Blame us casuals all you want, but blame your own kind as well.

you probably dont know what the difference between pugs and casuals is.
a casual guild will need more time to complete the raids. but casual guilds can still be coordinated and play well. casuals simply dont have a lot of time. but that doesnt automatically mean they wont be able to see and play the content.
they will see it, they will play it and they will be able to complete it. the only difference is they will need more time compared to a dedicated hardcore guild.

pugs are groups full of random people who dont know each other, dont know how the people in the group play, dont communicate with each other. and there is no optimization, teamplay, organisation or coordination (all of the points are big parts of raids).
if you want to make raid content so pugs can run through it, you might as well just stick with the braindead press 1 win game open world events. there is more than enough content for pugs already.

99% of the game is easy mode. what is wrong if they design a little bit more content for the better and more coordinated players? there is nothing wrong except that people like you feel entitled to everything.
as long as it is optional content with optional rewards they can make the raids as difficult as they want. if you dont have the time or dont like raid content thats fine, nobody will force you to play it.
+ challenge and content especially for guilds without random people involved is exactly what this game is missing in PvE and what people have been asking for for so long. even casual players are asking for challenge.

and if the raids have good mechanics, nobody will burn through it within a few days.
also challenge and difficulty means high replayability and that is good for the game.

raids are and have always been for good and smart players and organized guilds (casual or pro).
not for pugs.

and it would be cool if bad and anti social players would stop hiding behind the word “casual” to have an excuse.

Bri.8354:

IndigoSundown.5419:

My initial thought was that these questions need to be answered as soon after the CDI starts as possible. Then I realized that once the thread got a couple of pages long, people would just jump in and not read the rest of the thread. Maybe Chris should use the Question/Answer posting option to put these points at the top of every page.

It seems to me sometimes that hosting a CDI is like the proverbial “herding of cats.” A raid CDI is going to take that to a new level, because of the points Bri raises. I strongly suspect that nothing like consensus is going to come from this.

Since raids aren’t going to be a multi-part CDI they can’t be asking the questions many of us are trying to answer in this thread. Rather than asking “What should raids be?” they need to make clear what they have in mind for raids and gather feedback about how to improve and build upon what they have in mind.

So for instance, they would have to state something like this in the opening post:

What we view a raids to be is:

• A new guild mission in the open world that anyone can join in on.
• It will feature puzzles and combat encounters, leading up to a boss at the end.
• Rewards will be guaranteed rares or greater, guild commendations, and guild specific rewards like the other guild missions, only greater.
• Players can only gain credit from these once a week.

Players can then suggest alternative and additional systems, ways to improve encounters and mechanics, and things of that nature rather than everyone throwing out a different idea of what a “raid” should be.

This is a good idea. Of course, despite, this, much of the thread would be devoted to, “I don’t want it this way, I want X instead.” with X consisting of a wall of text. >.>

i dont think they need to tell us what their view of raids is. if you look back in the MMO history, raid means raid and its pretty obvious what raids look like, its not subjective.
if for example someone really believes a guild mission in the open world has something to do with raids (especially when they call it guild raid and you can be sure its going to be instanced) then idk what to say. its just like the people on reddit who said “oh raids, cool this will be something about GvG”.

Just as a reminder to everyone. When ANet added the mechanic to the champion wraith in the grenth temple which drained everything in an AOE and it had to be CC’d to stop it, literally every time without fail for weeks on end nobody would CC and there would be a massive wipe.

If this is the audience we are dealing with, how can raids even have any chance of even having any sort of mechanic besides press 1 when people can’t even use a crowd control skill for an extremely clearly choreographed attack?

You know I was thinking on how Anet can turn old living story events into raids and I had this vision for the Battle of the Breachmaker:
Start: You talk to a “Historian” type NPC to ask about the battle of the breachmaker to start the instance. Max party limit is around 15-30 but we’ll forget about party size details.

Instance begins and you must go and defeat all the regular bosses (you know the champions that spawn everywhere when nothing was going on), you have an infinite time to do this but you get a gold/silver/bronze bonus reward depending on how fast you defeat them. This is done to encourage you to split up and optimize your parties but PuGs can just train them if they just want to beat the instance.

After the bosses are defeated the 3 color knights spawn, you have to split up your group into 3 and try to beat them all in a set time frame, so pretty much just a copy-paste from the open world version.

Then everyone comes together for the Battle against Scarlet’s Prime Hologram, the fight more or less wouldn’t have to be changed since it was designed for 50 people (it split a map into 3 versions which wouldn’t be needed here).

Instead of the above reward for just the bonus bosses you could get a gold/silver/bronze chest based on your speed of completion with gold being very difficult to achieve.
There BAM, full raid not a massive amount of new content from Anet required.

maha.7902:

Just as a reminder to everyone. When ANet added the mechanic to the champion wraith in the grenth temple which drained everything in an AOE and it had to be CC’d to stop it, literally every time without fail for weeks on end nobody would CC and there would be a massive wipe.

Well, besides the normal quality of average players, Anet did forget here that Defiant in bigger player groups makes interrupting on demand practically impossible.

Astralporing.1957:

maha.7902:

Just as a reminder to everyone. When ANet added the mechanic to the champion wraith in the grenth temple which drained everything in an AOE and it had to be CC’d to stop it, literally every time without fail for weeks on end nobody would CC and there would be a massive wipe.

Well, besides the normal quality of average players, Anet did forget here that Defiant in bigger player groups makes interrupting on demand practically impossible.

It had the base defiant that bosses in dungeons have. I’m pretty sure 10% of a 60-man zerg can CC a boss with defiant on.

EgonVenkman.1907:

The sad, unfortunate truth is that there are too many people who dedicate a large portion of their life to do that exact thing; beat them day 1. It is a fact of modern mmo development that you locusts will chew through the entire content that took a year to develop in a matter of hours or days, then cry that it was too easy or you want more.

There is overtuned, undertuned and correctly tuned. You make it sound like the third thing is impossible to accomplish and has never happened. I don’t need a time machine back to vanilla wow to know you’re wrong about that.

NoTrigger.8396:

i dont think they need to tell us what their view of raids is. if you look back in the MMO history, raid means raid and its pretty obvious what raids look like, its not subjective.
if for example someone really believes a guild mission in the open world has something to do with raids (especially when they call it guild raid and you can be sure its going to be instanced) then idk what to say. its just like the people on reddit who said “oh raids, cool this will be something about GvG”.

I love it when someone tries to invoke a tautology when it shouldn’t be.

Now to be constructive? If you look back in MMO history, “raid” usually can only be categorized as “an amount of players larger than one party makeup going after one piece of content”. In EverQuest it was weird because “raids” which once were rather requiring attention to detail and multiple groups became less so later on. There were dedicated “raids” after Planes of Power where mechanics were specifically added to facilitate it . . . but until then, it wasn’t exactly present.

. . . and before EverQuest raids didn’t really exist in a form we’d recognize.

GW1 didn’t have “raids” in the usual sense of the word. It did have two 12-person missions, and two which would use two 8-person groups in tandem (both of which are in Factions).

Since we have a significant amount of players from GW1 hanging around (which can be defined as anything higher than zero) it’s probably a good idea to set a few things about what a raid is before discussing them.

Otherwise we get the five blind men and an elephant.

maha.7902:

Astralporing.1957:

maha.7902:

Just as a reminder to everyone. When ANet added the mechanic to the champion wraith in the grenth temple which drained everything in an AOE and it had to be CC’d to stop it, literally every time without fail for weeks on end nobody would CC and there would be a massive wipe.

Well, besides the normal quality of average players, Anet did forget here that Defiant in bigger player groups makes interrupting on demand practically impossible.

It had the base defiant that bosses in dungeons have. I’m pretty sure 10% of a 60-man zerg can CC a boss with defiant on.

You would be surprised.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

maha.7902:

Astralporing.1957:

maha.7902:

Just as a reminder to everyone. When ANet added the mechanic to the champion wraith in the grenth temple which drained everything in an AOE and it had to be CC’d to stop it, literally every time without fail for weeks on end nobody would CC and there would be a massive wipe.

Well, besides the normal quality of average players, Anet did forget here that Defiant in bigger player groups makes interrupting on demand practically impossible.

It had the base defiant that bosses in dungeons have. I’m pretty sure 10% of a 60-man zerg can CC a boss with defiant on.

You would be surprised.

And that is precisely why ANet can’t make raids, because they are trying to cater to the people who can’t pay attention, and then the people in this thread who …. refuse to pay attention and don’t want to have to partake in any sort of co-ordination. How can we have interesting content without co-ordination? And if it’s the whole “I don’t want to have to use a third party voice program”, is it really killing people to download like some 2mb file, go in to a TS and literally just sit silently while listening to commanders giving instructions?

People say they want content more interesting than zerg press 1, but then they place personal restrictions like “I don’t want to have to use a teamspeak or join a guild or for it to be instanced” and then it’s like … well how is this going to work then?

NoTrigger.8396:

EgonVenkman.1907:

Your type had a chance at the hard and challenging content with Wildstar. And you proved that the hardcore community is too toxic, especially when working within your own kind.

why do you say stuff like that when you dont have a clue? people arent leaving wildstar because of the difficult content or your mysterious toxic community. they are leaving because of server transfer restrictions, rune rng and stuff like that.

Nobody would need server transfers if the server were not empty .. or what is the reason exactly ?

Oh .. and haven’t you heared you get Megaservers .. and that is already a very old news .. so have fun there.

maha.7902:

Astralporing.1957:

maha.7902:

Just as a reminder to everyone. When ANet added the mechanic to the champion wraith in the grenth temple which drained everything in an AOE and it had to be CC’d to stop it, literally every time without fail for weeks on end nobody would CC and there would be a massive wipe.

Well, besides the normal quality of average players, Anet did forget here that Defiant in bigger player groups makes interrupting on demand practically impossible.

It had the base defiant that bosses in dungeons have. I’m pretty sure 10% of a 60-man zerg can CC a boss with defiant on.

Defiance scales by how many players are around it, iirc. In 80+ zergs, it will likely stack to 77. So you require at least 78 hard CCs to consistently remove stacks of defiance and interrupt again.

maha.7902:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

maha.7902:

Astralporing.1957:

maha.7902:

Just as a reminder to everyone. When ANet added the mechanic to the champion wraith in the grenth temple which drained everything in an AOE and it had to be CC’d to stop it, literally every time without fail for weeks on end nobody would CC and there would be a massive wipe.

Well, besides the normal quality of average players, Anet did forget here that Defiant in bigger player groups makes interrupting on demand practically impossible.

It had the base defiant that bosses in dungeons have. I’m pretty sure 10% of a 60-man zerg can CC a boss with defiant on.

You would be surprised.

And that is precisely why ANet can’t make raids, because they are trying to cater to the people who can’t pay attention, and then the people in this thread who …. refuse to pay attention and don’t want to have to partake in any sort of co-ordination. How can we have interesting content without co-ordination? And if it’s the whole “I don’t want to have to use a third party voice program”, is it really killing people to download like some 2mb file, go in to a TS and literally just sit silently while listening to commanders giving instructions?

People say they want content more interesting than zerg press 1, but then they place personal restrictions like “I don’t want to have to use a teamspeak or join a guild or for it to be instanced” and then it’s like … well how is this going to work then?

Don’t give up on humanity just yet.
People are usually obtuse and stupid when you screm loud in the /map channel saying that you are holding the absolute truth (even though you hold the absolute truth in this case).

I found out that using mp and whispers works much better on these kind of people (not a 100% efficient ofc).

And just remember that anet created megabosses with a moderate succes. So all is not lost. Instanced guild raids could be a success, and I have confidence in any new megaboss they could add.

Also remember at launch when everyone complained that dungeons were too hard and Anet needed to nerf them now (It was funny I heard this scenario repeated itself in the china release)? O how times have changed.